Coming, Coming, Gone
by Jabberwocky1
Summary: The Transgenics have failed in their quest to stop the Familiars from unleashing the Coming. The human race is obliterated and now the Transgenics must fight for their own survival against the Familiars in an empty world...
1. Prologue

**Coming, Coming... Gone**

**Summary: **The Transgenics have failed in their quest to stop the Familiars from unleashing the Coming. The human race is obliterated and now the Transgenics must fight for their own survival against the Familiars in an empty world, and ultimately, for the right to control it.

**Pairing:** Max/Alec at some point...

**Disclaimer:** I don't own it

**Rating: **T at the moment. I'll increase it as needed.

_**A/N:** It suddenly hit me the other night that the Transgenics might lose their fight against the Familiars to stop the Coming. I'm not sure why it's taken me soooo long to come to this quite obvious realisation. I mean, you either win or lose, right? But when I thought about it I couldn't remember ever reading a fiction where they do lose. If someone has already written a story like this, could someone please recommend it to me? I'd like to read it._

_In the meantime I'm going to embark on writing my own. I'd also like to throw the challenge open to anyone else interested in writing their version of events if in fact the transgenics had failed to stop the Coming. If anyone does take up this little challenge, please let me know; I'd love to read it._

_I've also included a song choice for every chapter. Feel free to ignore it – you never know though, you might find a new song you like!_

oOoOoOoOo

**Prologue**

_**MUSIC --- Muse: Apocalypse Please**_

They gathered silently on the roof of the tallest building in Terminal City and watched as it approached. Below the streets erupted in chaos. The air was thick with the stench of panic and desperation. Abandoned children lay screaming in the streets. Gangs of looters and arsonists set whole Sectors ablaze. Violence and bloodshed stained the city red as Ordinaries fought to escape through the Checkpoints; frantically fleeing on foot with only the clothes on their backs in their desperation to avoid their fate. Trying to escape the city like rats from a sinking ship.

But to no avail. Chaos reigned all around them, and there was nothing they could do to stop it. There was nothing anyone could do except wait and witness the carnage.

It was one thing to look death in the face, to stare it down, confront it head on, and fight for your very survival. It was quite another to watch helplessly from the sidelines as it came for someone else and know that there was absolutely nothing you - or them - could do to stop it.

Nothing except stand on the roof and prepare yourself for the carnage that was about to reign. To resign oneself to the guilt of being one of the few who would ultimately survive for no other reason than because of the blood that pumped through your veins. Knowing that as thousands of innocents lost their lives in an act of mass genocide, you could have stopped it. If only you'd had more time...

But time had run out. This battle they had lost. Admittedly they weren't going to be the ones that paid the ultimate price. Humanity was. But it had been the most important battle. Even the coming battle for their own survival paled in comparison to the obliteration that would be the human race in mere moments.

The world would never be the same again. In the space of a couple of seconds one comet would set in effect a chain of events that would send the world hurtling back five thousand years. Civilisation as it was known would cease to be. All because one crazy assed group of people had grandiose ideas of ruling the world.

And it looked like they were going to succeed.

_To Be Continued..._

_**A/N:**__ A little melodramatic maybe, but I hoped it worked! Love to hear what you thought!_


	2. Judgement Day

**Chapter One: Judgement Day**

_**MUSIC --- E.S Posthumus: Unstoppable**_

oOoOoOoOo

They'd known it was coming. They'd known the exact moment it was going to happen, and yet there'd still been nothing they could do to stop it. They'd tried. _Oh, how they'd tried_. But in the end there just hadn't been enough of them; there hadn't been enough opportunities; there hadn't been enough _time_. It had all come down to time. And now time had, finally, run out.

Alec turned his head to gaze at Max where she stood next to him. She was standing there as rigid as a statue, her whole frame bow tight, watching like the rest of them as the comet got bigger and bigger in the sky as it approached. The only movement she made was the occasional clenching and unclenching of her fists and the grinding of her jaw. Alec thought if she got any tenser she might turn to marble and then implode, showering the rooftop with dust and little shards of marbleised Max. He suspected this was probably exactly what was happening to her insides right about now too. Because it was exactly what was happening to _his_ insides.

He ran his hand through his hair. He'd known there was no way Max was ever going to take this eventuality well. There was no way any of them were going to take this well. But Max... well, Max felt things more deeply than the rest of them. Max felt responsibility and guilt and righteousness and judgement like nobody else. She didn't just feel them; she owned them. She'd made them hers. She'd bound them to herself like a never-ending punishment.

Over the last six months Alec had been working slowly at trying to short circuit this destructive mentality of hers, and he liked to think that in some small way he had managed to make some headway. He'd helped her to see that not everything was attributable to her. She wasn't personally responsible for every shitty thing that was happening to them, and neither was she responsible for singlehandedly trying to rectify it. He had tried to make her see that some things just were, and that yes, where you could you should try to right the wrongs, but in the end, if they couldn't be righted, well... that also just was. She wasn't personally responsible for _everything_, he'd yelled at her one day, because that was just plain narcissistic.

As he glanced at her face and watched as she ground her teeth together and tried to blink the tears that were threatening away, Alec knew that all his coaching had gone to waste. There was no way that Max was not going to take the end of the human race as a personal failing. And to some extent, Alec knew that it was – to all of them. They'd all spent the last six months racing against the clock trying to find a way to stop the Coming. They'd spent every waking hour, every resource, every ounce of strength trying to find a way – any way – to save even just one human. But there hadn't been a way. Not in the amount of time that they'd had. After all, the Familiars had had thousands of years to mastermind an impenetrable plan of destruction, and they'd had just six months to find a solution. It hadn't been nearly enough.

Now they were standing on the roof of the tallest building in T.C. watching as their failing ended the world as they knew it. Alec knew it was masochistic, but what else was there left to do? They'd had no choice but to send their human friends away. They'd had to sit them down and admit that they had no hope of stopping the calamity that would most probably claim their lives in the end, and that the only slim hope for survival now rested on their flight from the city. They told Cindy and Normal, Sketchy and Logan to flee as far as they could into the remotest place they could find. Their only hope now lay in avoiding contact with the pathogen, and any person or thing that might carry it. They'd known they were sentencing their friends to a harsh, lonely existence if they managed to survive, but there was nothing that could be done about it. It was the only option left open to them.

They'd all said their tearful goodbyes three weeks ago, instructing them to head for the wilds of South America. Alec had helped Max make the preparations, because lord knew that both of them had needed the support of the other. Both their minds and emotions had been churning so violently that neither of them had been capable of focusing much past their own heartache; it had taken the two of them to try to plan for every contingency. But in the end they'd prepared their friends for the hard life they would hopefully lead as best they could, and then sent them off alone.

Alec watched as the huge rock in the sky got even bigger. There was something majestic about it. The way it appeared almost suspended in the sky, like a giant Christmas bauble. Something beautiful and indomitable. Probably something poetic too, but that had never really been Alec's thing.

Alec knew that as tough as today was going to be for them all, the subsequent days would probably be worse. The days ahead of them weren't going to be pretty; not by a long shot.

He glanced around the rooftop at all the other transgenics standing, watching history being destroyed, and wondered if any of them had considered what tomorrow was going to bring. He'd tried to broach the subject with Max several times in the last week, but she'd stubbornly refused to even discuss it. She was determined they were going to pull a proverbial rabbit out of their hat at the very last moment and save humanity. Alec had to admit that Max really was the eternal optimist. Him though; he was much more the realist. He always liked to have at least a Plan B up his sleeve, and if he could afford it, a Plan C and D.

He had a pretty definite idea of what their future was now going to be like, and it wasn't going to be rainbows and lollipops. The Familiars weren't going to sit around on their laurels for long. Admittedly their plan to have humanity wipe out the transgenics for them had not been the success they'd been hoping for. But now... now they didn't have to operate under the cover darkness. Now they could wage any sort of war they liked to try and rid themselves of the animals they thought of as abominations.

Alec suddenly heard Max suck in a sharp breath, and shot her a concerned look before focusing once again on the giant moon-like rock hovering just above the outskirts of the city. It was so close that Alec could easily see the giant craters on its surface without his genetically enhanced sight; it's gigantic size blocking out the sun. It was going to do some serious damage when it finally struck. But the impact wouldn't be what killed most of the inhabitants of the city. No, it was the pathogen on that giant rock that would spread through the city - and eventually the world - that would wipe out everyone who wasn't either a Familiar or a Transgenic.

Alec stepped into Max's personal space and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her back firmly against his chest.

"You don't have to watch this, Max," he murmured softly into her ear.

"Yes, I do," she whispered back, her voice hard. "Someone has to bear witness to what they've done. And this is the moment I'm going to remember when I finally watch the life drain out of Ames White's eyes."

Alec knew there were no words and simply squeezed her harder against himself, resting his cheek against her hair as they stood together surrounded by their fellow transgenics, and watched as the comet hurtled the final distance towards the city. Alec felt Max stiffen in his arms as at last the comet struck the earth, and anything else in its way. Their ears roared with the sound of hundreds of tonnes of rock slamming into concrete and steel. They saw buildings topple and the earth leap up around it, almost like it was jumping for joy; welcoming it to earth.

The building they were standing on shook beneath them; the floor rolling like it would have had there been an earthquake. Alec had only enough time to tighten his hold around Max before they were thrown to the ground.

_To Be Continued..._


	3. Sky Is Falling

**Chapter Two: Sky is Falling **

_**MUSIC --- Bertie Blackman: Sky is Falling **__(If you haven't checked out this Aussie artist yet you should head over to Last(dot)fm where this song can be found)_

oOoOoOoOo

She had to concentrate hard to suck in a deep breath, the fall having knocked the wind out of her. She lay for a moment whilst she took stock of her condition. There was no permanent damage, just a few bruises, and not even many of those; something had broken her fall.

She didn't want to look. She knew there was no escaping it, but just for a couple more seconds she wanted to pretend like the world as she knew it hadn't just imploded right before her eyes. She just wanted to lay here with her face buried in Alec's chest and pretend she didn't exist; that this disaster didn't exist, and that it wasn't her fault.

She could feel her control finally starting to slip; it was running through her hands like sand at the beach, and the tighter she tried to grasp it the more elusive it became. She clutched Alec tighter to her, pressing her face into his shirt as she concentrated her whole being on just breathing; breathing his scent in and out, controlled even breathing, in and out. She wiped her mind clean and concentrated on keeping her insides together; because if she didn't concentrate on holding them together then they were going to shatter into a million little pieces, and she knew she wasn't strong enough to put herself back together. Not when she knew that everyone who was left would need that strength.

She felt a sob escape as she wrestled her emotions; they wanted to consumer her whole, and she wanted to let them. _God, how she wanted to let them._ To just give up control and dissolve into the helpless little girl she felt she was, was tempting as hell. She wanted to wash her hands of her life. She wanted to wash her hands of it all. Right now she wished she were human more than she had ever wished for it before. Because if she were human her fate would be sealed. There would be no more fighting, no more heartache, no more death - except for hers. And that was something she could live with. That was something she could accept.

She felt a pair of arms embrace her tightly as warm hands glided up and down her back, firstly in search of injury, and then in a soothing motion as a deep rumbling voice murmured calming words. It reminded her that she wasn't alone; that _she _was supposed to be the strong one. It gave her the strength to suck in a deep breath, bury all the shattered, broken pieces of her soul deep within, before levering herself up.

She was careful to keep her back to the chaos and devastation below and extended a hand. Alec glanced at her for a second and she knew he was assessing both her physical and psychological condition in that one swift but penetrating glance, before placing his rougher palm in hers as she heaved him to his feet.

Alec looked out over the devastation, watched as below those who had survived the initial impact of the comet panicked and ran for their lives, desperate to escape. He watched as others realised a loved one hadn't escaped in time; some collapsing in the street to weep openly, others shrieking in anguish as they bolted further into the chaos looking for survivors.

Screaming. They were all screaming. Some were crying. Others sobbing. The only sounds she could hear were the sounds of heartbreak. Hers loudest of all.

"You're going to have to look eventually," Alec said softly as he looked over her shoulder and out at the destruction. He was standing directly in front of her so that she was looking at the centre of his muscled chest.

Max opened her eyes and looked up at him, her bleary gaze meeting his tortured hazel eyes.

"If I can't see it, then maybe it didn't happen," she whispered.

He gave a small nod, understanding her logic; he wished he had that sort of luxury. He watched her take a fortifying breath before turning to face their new reality.

Alec stepped up beside her and wrapped an arm around her. "You know it's only going to get worse," he said, giving her a considered look. He hated to see that agonised look in her eye. He didn't like having to be the one forced to put it there, not when his first instinct was to shield her from it. But she needed to deal. The sooner the better.

She nodded her head, unable to take her eyes away from the smoking rubble and screaming people below, silent tears tracking down her cheeks.

"We're going to have to decide what we're going to do," Alec said seriously, hugging her tighter to his side, trying to provide any comfort he could.

"I'm gonna kill that son of a bitch," Max hissed hatefully.

"Oh, that's definitely on the to-do list," Alec grinned viciously. "But I was talking more immediately."

"We help them," Max said hollowly, her eyes riveted to a little abandoned blonde-haired boy sitting in the gutter two streets down, his face red and tear streaked as he cried his heart out.

"You know there's nothing you can do for them," Alec replied evenly, the bitter words sticking in his throat.

"We might not be able to save them, but we can try to help them while they're still here."

Alec had to bite back a retort. She knew as well as he did that anything they did would prove useless. Either way humanity was as good as dead. That wouldn't stop them trying though. But Alec wasn't looking forward to having to try. He knew that he was going to have to stand back and watch as everyone Max struggled to help sickened and died before her eyes, and he was going to be forced to watch as every time that happened, a small part of her sickened and died with them. But there was nothing he could do to prevent it. If she stood back and did nothing he knew the result would be the same. Her guilt would eat at her just as corrosively if she did nothing. And he knew that having to watch what this was going to do to her was going to shred his soul. Neither of them were ever going to be as they once had been; but then neither was the world. It had a sense of symmetry about it.

"Where do you want to start?" Alec asked, gazing out at the cataclysmic destruction.

"Anywhere we can," Max replied with sad determination, slipping out from under his arm as she turned to make her way down the stairs and into the warzone below.

_To Be Continued..._

_**A/N:**__ Okay, so I've decided to throw this story open to requests because it makes life much more interesting! So if you want/don't want to see something/someone in particular appear/happen let me know and I'll try to accommodate your wish! Otherwise please stop by and tell me what you thought of the chapter! ;)_


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